Part 1 of four
The Part of the Ground Nobody Mentions
Three standing charges land on the same rectangle every year and none of them appears on a quote. They are the reason a lot's price moves in years when nothing about the lot has changed.
The four questions
| What this part buys | Nothing you can see. Property tax on the parcel, whatever the stormwater charge is on that much impervious surface, and the reserve against resurfacing. |
|---|---|
| What makes it move | County and municipal assessment cycles, and the fact that acres of asphalt shed a great deal of water and are charged for it. |
| What to ask when you call | When the lot was last resurfaced. It is a polite way of asking whether a large bill is coming, and operators answer it readily. |
| What cannot be promised about it | A price held flat across a reassessment. No operator controls that and no desk can promise around it. |
Three bills, three clocks
- Property tax. Assessed on the parcel, adjusted on a cycle that has nothing to do with parking. A reassessment can move a lot's costs in a year when the lot itself is unchanged.
- Stormwater. An acre of asphalt sheds a great deal of water into somebody's system, and that is charged by impervious area in this region. It is one of the few costs that scales exactly with the thing being sold.
- The resurfacing reserve. Asphalt in a freeze and thaw climate has a life, and a lot either sets money aside against the end of it or does not.
None of the three appears on a quote and all three are in it.
Why this matters to somebody parking for nine days
It does not, directly. It matters because it explains a thing that otherwise looks like sharp practice: two lots the same distance out, the same surface, the same fence, quoting differently and neither of them lying.
One is carrying a resurfacing bill and one has just paid it. One sits in a municipality that reassessed last year and one does not. A quote is a snapshot of somebody's costs on the day you asked.
The one question worth asking
When was it last resurfaced.
An operator that resurfaced two years ago will tell you cheerfully. An operator that has not resurfaced in fifteen will change the subject, and the state of the surface when you arrive will already have told you.
Neither answer is a reason not to park there. A rough lot at a fair price is a fair deal. It is only a problem when a rough lot is priced like a smooth one.
Practical
- Look at the surface on arrival and decide whether it matches what you were told.
- Standing water on a February morning means the drainage is old. Park on a crown if there is one.
- None of these three bills reaches a driver as a separate line. What you are quoted is what the operator has decided to charge on the day you ask.